...liberals focus on thread titles... http://techcentralstation.com/082605D.html -- Despite Media Blackout, Fallujah Rebuilds By Michael Fumento After crisscrossing Fallujah by foot and Humvee in May, I reported on tremendous progress being made to restore "the city we had to destroy to save." Actually fighting left most of the town unscathed; most damage was from three decades of neglect under Saddam Hussein. And rebuilding began almost immediately. Good news from Iraq rarely gets a single story compared to the many thousands on a war protestor's stake-out in Texas. Yet it occurs nonetheless. The following is from an e-mail by Navy Lt. Cameron Chen, head of the Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit of the 8th Engineer Support Battalion at Camp Fallujah, with which I had a short embed. You'll see Chen doesn't wear a mini-skirt and shake pom-poms but he's certainly optimistic. "The city is slowly rebuilding and returning to life. Some report that it's now the safest city in the Sunni Triangle due to the heavy presence of Iraqi police and army. Every major intersection now has unarmed Iraqi police directing traffic in crisp short-sleeve button down shirts, white gloves, black flack vests, and dark blue pants. More frequently we're responding to IEDs [improvised explosive devices] reported by local children, police and informants. "The 10pm-5am curfew is still in effect. But people can be seen on the streets up until the last minutes before 10. The streets remain unlit at night although there are green neon lights around the minarets of the major mosques. Lines at the gas stations can be over a hundred cars long. Ironic since we are in the heart of oil country." A reason for this, which the media rarely report, is that the Iraqi government subsidizes gasoline so that it's virtually free. Sell tickets to a pro football games for five cents apiece and see what kind of line you get. The subsidies also encourage smugglers, who can buy dirt cheap and sell exorbitantly high. Chen continues: "On the main strip, restaurants and electronics shops are open for business. I have seen some sit down diner-type restaurants and others where people line up for food at teller-like windows. There is still a great deal of trash on the streets by Western standards but noticeably less than when we first arrived. Many people are moving back into the city and buildings are in various stages of repair. There are more vehicles on the streets; many are BMW's and Mercedes." On the other hand, Chen adds: "I still don't understand why there isn't more commerce. It seems plain that hardware stores and gas stations are in demand. I read that many fundamentalist Muslims still consider any form of interest as being usury and have not embraced the cycle of debt and capital that feeds our economy. Most property is not used to secure collateral because of lack of deeds or titles and there is no entrepreneurial spirit. Maybe I am not reading the signs properly but I have yet to see a bank." Regarding safety, Chen writes: "There's still talk of foreign fighters entering the city to attack Iraqi and Coalition forces. Yesterday in [Fallujah's outskirts] an IED detonated across the street from a busy new electronics and cell phone shop. Luckily nobody was hurt, but obviously the locals didn't know about the attack and whoever set the device was not a member of the local community. I was encouraged hearing English-speaking motivated Iraqi army officers and non-commissioned officers who were optimistic about weeding out the insurgency. "The insurgency continues despite the changes. We are seeing a lot of IEDs and we were inadvertently involved in a firefight that lasted for about half an hour (seemed like hours) up in Saqlawiyah [near Fallujah]. There are four different Iraqi Army battalions based within the city and each has a US Army advisory unit of about 20 officers and senior NCOs who have done an admirable job in training the Iraqis. It's arguably the most difficult job in Iraq but also perhaps making the biggest difference." No, Fallujah doesn't rival Jamaica as a vacation resort. But last year at this time it was the epicenter of Iraq terrorism, filled with decapitators and bomb-makers. If progress can be made there, it can be made anywhere in Iraq. Don't listen to the "quagmire" crowd. This war is being won. Michael Fumento (mfumento[at]pobox.com) is a former paratrooper who was embedded with the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Fallujah, Iraq. He is also a senior fellow at Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C.
Well our fellow from the Hudson institute doesn't want anyone to listen to the quagmire crowd. I wonder if he wants us to listen to facts. Electricity still isn't even at the level it was prior to the war, we can't control the strip to the airport, order hasn't been restored, we are still targets, the oil isn't flowing regularly etc. The good points are that Saddam is gone, and they held their first elections.
Not particularly, but when the thread title is misleading, whoever posts, regardless of ideology, will be called out on it. That's one thing that I love about the D&D.
that depends- if the thread provokes any snarky replies from the liberals around here...oh, hey! why yes, mission accomplished!
Ooh Oooh! I've got a feel good Iraq story! ----------- Iraq's Devastated Marshlands Recovering Fast, U.N. Says August 24, 2005 — By Andrew Cawthorne, Reuters NAIROBI — The ancient Iraqi marshlands drained by Saddam Hussein as punishment against their occupants are back to almost 40 percent of their former level, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) said on Wednesday. In a rare good news story for Iraq, Nairobi-based UNEP said latest satellite imagery showed a "phenomenal" recovery rate for the southern marshlands, back to almost 3,500 square km after dwindling to just 760 in 2002. Some scholars view the marshlands, at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates river, as the site of the original "Garden of Eden" in the Bible. Saddam began moving against the Marsh Arabs in the early 1990s, accusing them of supporting a Shi'ite Muslim uprising after the first Gulf War and harbouring criminals. A combination of dams and canals blocked water from the marshes, turning what was once a pristine, wetland ecosystem into semi-desert and forcing all but 40,000 of the area's 450,000 inhabitants to flee. But after the March 2003 war to topple Saddam, residents began returning and breaking the barriers, letting water again flow freely in a region where people had lived on small islands and moved on small wooden boats for thousands of years. ANCIENT WAY OF LIFE "The near total destruction of the Iraqi marshlands under the regime of Saddam Hussein was a major ecological and human disaster, robbing the Marsh Arabs of a centuries-old culture and way of life as well as food in the form of fish and that most crucial of natural resources, drinking water," said Klaus Toepfer, UNEP Executive Director. "The evidence of their rapid revival is a positive signal, not only for the environment and the local communities who live there, but must be seen as a contribution to wider peace and security for the Iraqi people and the region as a whole." UNEP said the marshlands totalled almost 9,000 square kilometres in the 1970s -- one of the world's largest wetlands with rare species like the Sacred Ibis bird. While satellite images showed wetland cover back to nearly 40 percent of that in August, the figure was closer to 50 percent back in the Spring thanks to winter rains and snow melt in the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates, UNEP said. "The new satellite imagery shows a rapid increase in water and vegetation cover over the last two years," it added in a statement. "While more detailed field analysis of soil and water quality is needed to gauge the exact state of rehabilitation, UNEP scientists believe the findings are a positive signal that the Iraqi marshlands are well on the road to recovery." Toepfer, however, warned that full reflooding would still take "many years" and must be carefully nurtured. With funds from Japan, UNEP is running drinking water, sanitation and wetland management projects in the area where locals live an austere and deeply impoverished existence. While the reflooding is positive for the environment, the region remains Iraq's poorest, with more than half the population unemployed, barely any primary schools and electricity reaching the area for just one hour a day. http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=8605
Damn... the last couple of days i've been downright GOPish in my posts. seeing possible good coming from Iraq...agreeing with you in your 'taunting thread...etc. I was feeling kinda Neo Con. Considering buying a Buick. Maybe taking advantage of a tax cut or two. Now I'm back to being a liberal. Curses! Oh well....they're a lot more fun anyway.
Well I don't know about that, but I do know the women are a lot more fun. They are a lot more "open minded", and I think you know what I'm sayin'..........
It's just not going to happen, is it. I'm destined to be a socialist from Canuckistan. Didn't want to join their club anyway. I'd never meet the dress code...and probably couldn't afford the cover charge. Oh well....I'm off to sunny California for a few of weeks. I'm sure you guys will get along fine without me. A bientot!
I saw where the US has had to bring in some Shiite troops from other areas to control the Fallujah folks after they let some of them back into town. Couldn't get Sunnis to repress their own people Next thing the US will claim that as humanitarians we must intervene to keep the Shia troops and the Sunni Fallujans from fighting. I guess we are borrowing old tricks from the 19th century British imperialists or is it Stalin? Enough of this America bashing. BTW the Americans have helped to rebuild a few of the houses that they destroyed a few months ago. I'm almost sure you can find some instances where US troops gave some candy to kids. Why isn't the mainstream media telling us about that? It could be worse for the Fallujans, Stalin, Hitler and Sadam would not have been so nice.
That article sounds about right for Fallujah. On ABC news a couple of months ago I saw a story about the recovery in Fallujah and they were saying basically the same thing. As far as this being an indication of the war being won and not a quagmire considering the effort that was spent on Fallujah and the heavy amount of control I would say that's a difficult conclusion to draw. I doubt the US and Iraqi army / police force have enough troops to impose that sort of control on Baghdad let alone the whole country. MC Mark good call on the Iraqi marsh story. Basso's favorite target the NYT did a story around a month ago on the Iraqi marshes and efforts to restore them. What I found really great about that story was how the locals took it into their own hands to start the restoration process by getting earth moving equipment and tearing down dikes.
it'd be interesting to note on what page that story ran, and to compare the number of "good" stories the times has run on iraq w/ the number of "bad."
